So... I have some Opinions™ about the ending of Judgement, but instead of focusing on those, I'm grabbing the one good idea I got out of it and running with it. This is sort of AU-ish, because that's all I apparently know how to do, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

More coming soon!

The digital clock on her microwave read 3:02. As Kirsty looked at the accusing red numbers, a dim glow in a near-unlit kitchen, she tried to rationalize what she was doing awake. She glanced down at the two mugs in her hands, piping hot, and then to her sofa where a salt lamp gave off a soft glow from the coffee table. The light cradled his soft features, saddened and tired, and he just stared at it in silence.

There was no rationalization for this. There was no good reason for any of this.

Kirsty approached the table in silence and set the darker mug on a coaster in front of him. His pitch-black eyes, now a smoky gray-blue, looked towards her with no other movement. He was clutching the comforter she'd wrapped over his shoulders, knuckles white and taut, and he smelled faintly of soap and drugstore shampoo. The shower had washed away the filth that had worked into his remaining wounds and his black leather jacket.

It didn't really help anything.

The man who was and wasn't the Cenobite Prince looked at her for a few seconds that lasted far too long before looking down at the drink. He released the comforter, which rested on a white t-shirt and cotton pants while the clothes she'd found him in tumbled in the wash. He touched the sides of the mug, and for a second flinched back before picking it up again. She wondered, for a brief moment, if his humans hands were more sensitive, if he was unused to the heat. He brought it up to his lips and let out a sigh, his breath casting the steam away from his face, before he took a drink.

She felt a touch voyeuristic watching something so simple that he'd perhaps not experienced since before she was born, so Kirsty turned to her own mug and drank from it. Chamomile and honey warmed her throat and her lungs, and she let herself savor the taste before she heard the faint clink of his mug settling on the coaster again.

He sat there, motionless once more, until Kirsty finished and set her own drink next to is. Finally he turned to her in full, and she looked up at those eyes that were caught in-between two beings, two halves of the same soul, not allowed to be one thing and unable to be the other.

"Thank you." It was a whisper, heavy and sad in its sincerity. Kirsty reached forward, slowly, and brushed her hand against his. He took it and squeezed, his thumb drawing a circle over her skin. It felt so strange without the leather.

"Of course," she answered, not really smiling, not sure if she was upset. Certainly she was hurting for him - for this was not Elliot Spencer, he hadn't been Elliot Spencer for almost a century, but here was Elliot Spencer with the eyes of a fallen Prince. She ached for him, in a way she didn't quite understand; for as much as she feared being as he had been, feared leather and steel and the thought of losing herself, this felt like a loss that was somehow greater.

Having him here, though? Knowing he was safe with her, even if he was in a pain like nothing either of them could ever imagine? She wasn't sure she was saddened by that. It soothed her to see him here, if only because it meant she knew he wasn't alone.

They looked at each other for another long moment. He reached forward, hand shaking a little, and his fingers brushed her cheek. Kirsty leaned into it, then brought her own hand up to do the same. He closed his eyes as her palm cradled the side of his jaw; and it occurred to her, however briefly, that in all of their encounters she had never been able to touch him like this. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, the knot in his brow easing the slightest bit. She pulled him forward with a gentle urge of her hand, and he followed, until their foreheads rested together.

When Kirsty opened her eyes, he was already looking at her. Perhaps this, whatever it was, had stripped his defenses away with the rest of him, because he looked at her with something full of mourning, full of adoration and awe. He didn't need to speak for her to understand, but he leaned a little closer.

"I love you, Kirsty," he said, and Kirsty smiled her small, tired smile at him.

"I love you too." His lip quirked a little at that, but the true change was in his eyes; though the sadness did not leave, she could see a glimmer of hope that had not been there since she'd found him that morning, alone and lost and abandoned to his fate. He brushed his nose against hers and she kissed him, softly, gently. He returned it only for a moment before pulling away and looking back at the salt lamp.

"...I do not know what I am going to do," he said, looking at the light, "or where I will go." She squeezed his hand again, and he looked back at her.

"I don't know what to do either," she said, "but you don't have to go anywhere. You can stay here."

"With you?" It wasn't disbelief - she heard that in the softness, in that note of hope again. It was a request for permission.

"With me," she answered, bringing his hand up to her lips and kissing the knuckles. "We'll figure this out together. Whatever that means." For the first time today he seemed at ease; his shoulders relaxed, and he leaned forward to kiss her cheek before finding her lips again. When they pulled away neither one spoke; he simply lifted his arm to wrap the comforter around her, and she leaned into him, closing her eyes as he did.

The faint glow of the salt lamp framed their tired, peaceful faces.